The waveshaper for a warhead has been traditionally made during the production procedure. Examples of ring shaped detonators which are used for two types of warhead include a 120 millimeter HEAT round for tanks which employs a soft plastic waveshaper and the MILAN anti tank missile employing similar technology. Both of these technologies for manufacturing require that the ring initiator be in place during warhead fabrication. Alignment must be checked in both cases with an X-ray of the warhead. Adjustment is not possible once the warhead is fabricated.
Other detonators which are used in the standard method of initiating an explosive charge are by centering the detonator at the rear of the warhead. The formation of a shaped-charge penetrator is dependent upon the shock wave collapsing of the typical copper, cone-shaped liner of the warhead. It has been determined that an optimal formation of the standard 42 degree copper cone occurs when the shock front resembles a flat plane wave. When a single point initiator is used, it generates a shock front in the form of a spherical wave front. As the wave front moves through the explosive, the radius of curvature increases and the wave front begins to resemble a plane wave.
The advantage of a point detonation when transitioned to the periphery of a combination device would offer several advantages in its field of use.
Therefore, an object of this invention is to provide a ring detonator device which allows a point initiation to be transferred to a ring detonator.
A further object of this invention is to provide a detonator device wherein the diameter of the detonator relative to the diameter of the warhead allows the formation of a wave front of a flat plane in a shorter distance.